The BBFC vs. UK Independent Labels

[MichaelB]

The BBFC used to have a strict policy preventing different ratings of a work existing at the same time, but this appears to have been phased out sometime in the early-mid 2000s.

See my "economies of scale" point above. Prior to then, countries needed their own localised releases, as pre-DVD formats didn't allow for multiple languages, optional subtitles etc. But once those became feasible with DVDs, major studio rightsholders would try to cater for as many territories as possible via discs whose machine-readable side was identical, and so it was very much in their interest that that same version get passed by the BBFC.

And since the BBFC is 100% funded by the film industry in general and the mainstream film industry in particular, I daresay it wasn't hard to gently persuade them to change their policy. ("Nice classification board. Be a shame if someone were to break it, know what I mean?")

[Orlac]

Strictly Censorship: The BBFC Gets A New President - https://reprobatepress.com/2022/09/28/s ... president/

[Mr Sausage]

Kaplinsky has been quoted as saying “it’s crucial that children’s welfare is at the forefront of policy decision-making and this is central to the BBFC’s efforts in the Online Safety space. The challenges that young people face now in the UK are greater than ever before – and I am committed to giving voice to their needs”

I know this is one of those empty, boilerplate statements, but...greater than during the blitz?

It just makes me laugh.

[colinr0380]

Remember that the "Online Safety Bill" is due to be published imminently now that finally a new government is in place and the issues with the Royals have passed to let business recommence, and it is in everyone's interests (especially the BBFC's, who are angling for the job of policing internet content) to make this issue as large as possible. Although in the current climate they may have trouble getting their voices heard amongst the more pressing discussions about Russia, the energy crisis, general strikes, interest rates and the pound.

It looks as if Natasha Kaplinsky is the first female President of the organisation in its 110 year history too, as well as the first with proven dance moves! I quite liked the Daily Mail's headline for their article: "From Salsa To Censor"!

[spectre]

Kaplinsky has been quoted as saying “it’s crucial that children’s welfare is at the forefront of policy decision-making and this is central to the BBFC’s efforts in the Online Safety space. The challenges that young people face now in the UK are greater than ever before – and I am committed to giving voice to their needs”

So the guiding policy behind classification decisions is going to be, literally, "won't somebody please think of the children". Cool!

[colinr0380]

A Guardian article on some recent BBFC classification decisions. Basically the original A Nightmare on Elm Street is going to be classified down from 18 to 15 for the first time for its upcoming theatrical re-release. The original version of The Hitcher is down to a 15 from an 18 for the first time as well, as is Risky Business. However on the other side of things the 1937 A Star Is Born is being classified up from a U rating to a 12 due to Fredric March's character threatening suicide; and Paint Your Wagon is being classified up from a PG to a 12 due to its horrific musical numbers.

[MichaelB]

Although technically the original A certificate for Paint Your Wagon was a 16A (in that under-sixteens needed an accompanying adult), so in many ways a 12 is a downgrade. Although admittedly you have to ignore all the video PG certificates in between.

[domino harvey]

A Guardian article on some recent BBFC classification decisions. However on the other side of things the 1937 A Star Is Born is being classified up from a U rating to a 12 due to Fredric March's character threatening suicide

Spoiler

Did they not finish watching it, or…

[colinr0380]

I was wondering that, since it has been a while since I last watched the 1937 film that I wasn't exactly sure how it all worked out! Maybe they were bracketing it in with the remakes? Or perhaps more likely just voicing the idea itself is triggering enough now.

[knives]

Just Shindo’s fantastic pseudo-autobiography Trees Without Leaves and my first thought was that it’d make a great Radiance release, but then I thought that might be impossible. So, I guess I’m curious if the film has ever had an uncut UK release and if not does anyone know if that would be possible. Reason for my question in the spoiler box below.

Spoiler

It’s a pretty important part of the plot that the lead as a child got fellatio and it’s only really told onscreen. No dialogue.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I don’t believe Trees Without Leaves has even been released in any part of the world (not even in Japan) and I think the only way to get it passed censors would be to try and say if it was a body double, though it depends on if you can see the face of the actor during the scene, similar to how Sweet Sweetback got released uncensored in the UK.

[jlnight]

No, Trees Without Leaves has never had any UK release.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song had a VHS release in 1998, uncut. When it was reissued in about 2005 it was subject to cuts as it fell foul of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (indecent images of a child in that opening sequence). The reason it got an uncut classification first time was because Melvin Van Peebles insisted Mario was over age when it was filmed. The BBFC checked it and found it to be false so, with Melvin's approval, blanked the offending scene for the reissue. There was a long description on the relevant page at the time (something about throwing black ink over the frame).

Lesson is, if you want to do those sorts of scenes, make sure the actor is an adult. No chance of an indecent image then.

[MichaelB]

Lesson is, if you want to do those sorts of scenes, make sure the actor is an adult. No chance of an indecent image then.

Or, in this particular case, don't publicly admit that the actor was underage many years later - but before the film received its first UK video classification!

Which was where Melvin van Peebles went wrong.

[colinr0380]

And most ironically Channel 4 television in the UK had premiered Sweet Sweetback uncut as the centrepiece of their 1997 "Ba Ba Zee" season before the uncut VHS release followed in 1998, and long before the mid-2000s controversy came about.

[knives]

I don’t believe Trees Without Leaves has even been released in any part of the world (not even in Japan) and I think the only way to get it passed censors would be to try and say if it was a body double, though it depends on if you can see the face of the actor during the scene, similar to how Sweet Sweetback got released uncensored in the UK.

That’s fascinating. Now I’m even more curious about its release as there is a very nice edition with English subs on the back channels.

[GaryC]

And most ironically Channel 4 television in the UK had premiered Sweet Sweetback uncut as the centrepiece of their 1997 "Ba Ba Zee" season before the uncut VHS release followed in 1998, and long before the mid-2000s controversy came about.

Van Peebles claimed that the child was a different actor to Mario Van Peebles, so he doubly lied. Which is why I have a dim view of him.

Back in the 1980s, I suggested Sweetback for a showing at Southampton University, knowing little about it other than its reputation. I was told in no uncertain terms that the film had never been in UK distribution because customs didn't like it because of a scene of underage sex. I don't know if it had been seized by Customs at one point and how the person who told me that knew about it, but with hindsight it's perfectly plausible. I do know that Sweetback was shown in the short-lived but impressive Piccadilly Film Festival in the early 1990s. I saw it at the BFI Southbank in 1996 as part of their blaxploitation retrospective, in an uncut print. I remember thinking how the hell that had got past the BBFC uncut as Mario certainly looks underage. The showing was followed with an interview with Melvin Van Peebles by Darcus Howe (a recording of which is on Indicator's Watermelon Man disc). If I remember rightly, Van Peebles said at the start that there are some things about the film he wouldn't answer questions on, and that scene was one of them.

[Orlac]

I found the uncut tape of Sweetback in a Welsh library around 2006. I guess they never got the message it was now jailbait.

[Captain Paranoia]

I don’t believe Trees Without Leaves has even been released in any part of the world (not even in Japan) and I think the only way to get it passed censors would be to try and say if it was a body double, though it depends on if you can see the face of the actor during the scene, similar to how Sweet Sweetback got released uncensored in the UK.

As far as I know, there was a DVD release in 2002 as part of a Kaneto Shindo collection in Japan, but I don't think it has ever gotten a release anywhere else.

The whole thing reminds of the situation involving Lauzon's Léolo, another film I'm holding out for a Blu-Ray release of (On a side note, there is a UK DVD release of that film I'm curious whether or not it's censored, would be surprising if it was wasn't).

[GaryC]

The whole thing reminds of the situation involving Lauzon's Léolo, another film I'm holding out for a Blu-Ray release of (On a side note, there is a UK DVD release of that film I'm curious whether or not it's censored, would be surprising if it was wasn't).

The BBFC indicates cuts only for the cinema release and the original VHS, both in 1993, not for the DVD in 2006, but (without having seen the film in any release) I'd be very surprised if the last wasn't submitted in the cut version which was not cut further. According to the Melonfarmers site, that is what happened, and there's more detail about the cuts from Michael Brooke quoted there. There were two cuts, totalling thirty-two seconds.

[MichaelB]

Any UK release would have to be cut; the uncut version potentially infringes both the 1937 Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act and the 1978 Protection of Children Act.

From a distributor's point of view, if the BBFC gives you that advice, you have the option of testing it in court, but it's no surprise that pretty much nobody ever goes down that route - the cost alone would wipe out any potential profit on an ultra-niche title, and the chances of success in this case would be negligible (since the contentious animal footage would appear to be a textbook example of "visible infliction of pain"), and the PCA doesn't allow any contextual wiggle room, so the shot in question is legally a recording of clearly underage sexual activity. If there's any proof to the contrary* in both cases, it would have been furnished back in 1993, when Jean-Claude Lauzon was still alive and presumably very keen to see his film passed uncut.

Although there's no reason why the BBFC would have been minded to cut it further - it's a lot more liberal now than it was in the James Ferman era, and the problems were down to inescapable legal issues rather than nose-holding BBFC prejudice.

(*Conversely, in the case of Ann Turner's Celia, the filmmakers were able to provide BBFC-satisfying proof that the scene with the branded rabbit was faked - basically, it's real rabbit/fake poker for the medium shot and then fake rabbit/real poker for the close-up. The footage completely matched the evidence, and so the BBFC waved it through - I remember them expressing their relief about this in the covering letter, as they recognised that the scene was dramatically and psychologically pivotal.)

[colinr0380]

Just using this as an all-purpose thread about UK censorship. I was glad to see this appear: the centrepiece of Channel 4's Censored weekend in 1999 was a debate about the then-current boundaries of censorship on UK television (NSFW). This is the one where notoriously critic AA Gill calls Straw Dogs fine because "Susan George is a really bad actress", which was in no way the case. Straw Dogs remains an extremely powerful film and much more complex and important piece of work than any of the other films discussed, and was not particularly well handled by the commentators in that debate, but which (accidentally) proves the case that censorship and not allowing people to be able to see and judge a work for themselves allows for the 'gatekeepers' of a medium to portray and present it in whatever way they wish, from selectively edited clips with biased commentary; to coming at it from particular biases.

For some context about the films discussed and their history on UK television at the time:

[Violence]
- Natural Born Killers had notoriously skipped any video release and was shown on Channel 5 in the UK in November 1997 (only a few months into Channel 5 having began broadcasting), repeated again in 1999 and 2001. It has not been shown on UK television since this time, which is quite a shame since it may be Oliver Stone's best film and highly relevant to an age of media-saturated real crime sensationalisation, where the sociopathic killers are aided and abetted by a similarly bloodthirsty news media
- Straw Dogs was still unavailable at the time of the "Censored" debate, getting a DVD certificate in 2002 and had its first UK television screening on Channel 4 in August 2003, which has been its only UK television screening to date, over 22 years ago.

[Horror]
- The Exorcist famously was still suppressed by BBFC Director James Ferman specifically at the time of the debate, and once he retired was quickly given a theatrical and video re-release in the UK in 2000, and was just as quickly shown for the first time on UK television by Channel 4 in March 2001. Since that time and especialy in the last three or four years, it has become the most regularly shown film on UK television of this whole group, with the BBC showing it at least every year.
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was unavailable at the time of the debate but similarly to The Exorcist was quickly released after James Ferman's BBFC retirement. It received its first DVD release in 2000, as well as its first UK television screening on Channel 4 in October 2000, repeated in April 2003. That has been the last time the film has appeared on UK television, so it has been over 22 years since its last screening.

[Drugs]
On the complete other side of things we have discussions of both Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting, which had both aired on UK television before that 1999 debate. Pulp Fiction had appeared on BBC2 in November 1997 and would go on to appear multiple more times over the years. Trainspotting of course was literally a Channel 4 produced film, and had screened also in November 1997 (just 24 days after Pulp Fiction!) and would go on to become a staple of Channel 4 and Film4's schedules for decades.

[Sex]
- In The Realm of the Senses did screen on Film4 back when it was a paid subscription channel in 2000 (along with similar films that have never shown on Film4 again since it became a free to air station: Salo, Taxi Zum Klo, Seul Contre Tous and Romance) but has never shown on UK television beyond that. Even in that case it had to have a re-framed shot. Though it has since been released on Blu-ray in the 2010s.
- Emmanuelle - this had also received a premiere on Channel 5 before this Censored debate, in January 1998, repeated in 1999 and then shown on Channel 4 in 2001 (along with Alex Cox's "Emmanuelle: A Hard Look" documentary). The censor saying that: "the idea of this sort of film at all on terrestrial television only quite a short time ago would have been extraordinary" perhaps reflects Channel 5's impact when it began airing in 1997 with its remit of "Films, Football and F**king", airing a number of Russ Meyer films!

Ironically neither Emmanuelle itself or any Russ Meyer films have shown on UK television since the early 2000s, which perhaps suggests that the 'opening up' of censorship on UK television was in the process of shutting down again into bland homogeneity from around 2003-4 or so. But it is fascinating to look back on this debate, with its concerns about the internet back in 1999, from our current perspective as the UK makes its first concerted attempt to censor the online space. And for his dumb comment about Straw Dogs earlier on, AA Gill does make a good final point: "If you want to be remembered as an idiot by posterity, try to censor something"

[MichaelB]

Some details that you leave out which I think are quite important:

Natural Born Killers had been passed uncut by the BBFC; it was Warner Bros' decision not to release it on video - a decision they took after sanctioning a TV sale to Channel 5, which is why they couldn't do anything to prevent it from happening. And both the theatrical version and the longer cut were subsequently released on video in the UK, in both cases uncut.

The re-framed shot in In the Realm of the Senses affected all UK releases on all platforms; at the time, the BBFC judged the shot to potentially infringe the 1978 Protection of Children Act. Interestingly, they changed their minds circa 2010; I'm not sure why. Also, the Blu-ray release wasn't its first BBFC-approved UK video release (although it was the first uncut one since the pre-VRA era); a DVD came out circa 2000 with the same reframed shot.

I'd also suggest that the absence of Russ Meyer films has at least as much to do with the lack of technically acceptable masters as prudishness on the part of broadcasters; the only telecines available until very, very recently were analogue 4:3 ones created for laserdisc and VHS releases in the 1980s, and there's every chance that they might not have passed 21st-century broadcasting QC standards, given that 16:9 tellies were fast becoming ubiquitous (much faster than take-up in the US, for instance).

[colinr0380]

It is probably a combination of those aspects plus, after the film-centred first few years of Channel 5, they moved across to all night live home shopping and casino shows instead from the mid 2000s to the present day (ITV followed a similar trajectory as their regions coalesced into a single nationwide broadcaster, which removed the late-night blocks of programming which would show films. Channel 4 for its part dropped a lot of its own electic range of overnight programming through a combination of live Big Brother and a commitment to repeating its primetime programs with sign language in those slots instead). Though I would be celebrating the return of Russ Meyer and all those Shannon Tweed/Shannon Whirry erotic thrillers if they ever got remastered and broadcast!

[MichaelB]

The Channel 4 situation is complex, and in part dates back to the 1990 Broadcasting Act that forced them to sell their own advertising - and therefore pay more attention to viewing figures in a way that they didn't need to during the 1980s golden era. To their credit, standards remained very high throughout the 1990s (and it was that decade, not the 1980s, that was the real golden age of Channel 4 animation - in fact, I'd go further and say that that was the golden age of animation on any British telly channel), but when the DVD revolution happened at the turn of the 2000s a major rationale for, say, screening foreign-language films evaporated. In the 1980s, it was pretty much the only way of seeing them if you lived outside a major city as they mostly weren't released on video either unless they were by people like Jean-Jacques Beineix or Luc Besson, but by the mid-2000s there were plenty of alternative sources.